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Sometime I might experiment with pine soundboards.
If I had a wood like pitch pine and I wanted to extract some of the oli/resin from the wood to make it lighter, does anyone have any ideas how to do this?
Would soaking in spirits or acatone work?
Obviously, I should experiment but just wondering if anyone already has knowledge about this?

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

I don't have firsthand experience with this (yet), but my understanding is that baking spruce boards at a low temp (200* F) for a half hour or so will leach out some of the resins and cause the sap left in the board to cool to a hardened, "set" state. I'd love to hear some other, more informed, opinions on this.


Ken Jones
Mountain Song Guitars

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Mountain Song Guitars www.mountainsongguitars.com

Thanks, Ken. I was thinking of that method. Think I'll try tonight.

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

Baking does bring some pitch to the surface but not enough to measurably reduce weight. In the pieces I've done, there was no difference in weight once the wood came back to EMC.

Never baked anything with a lot of pitch though and it can't hurt to try.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

Baking wood sets the pitch. It helps in preventing sap from weeping from the wood.

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Another day, another dollar.

Probably best to start with something of lower density if you're looking for "light" (unless, of course, you happen to have a good/inexpensive source for pitch pine, which happens to be a relatively dense species).

Standard, plantation " pyjama" grade radiata pine makes a reasonable guitar. Pics and sound samples here (bottom of page), build thread here. Radiata is the standard construction softwood in this part of the world. When I lived in your part of the world it was "Baltic pine", whatever that is. (P. sylvestris, I think).

More info on pines generally here.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

I quess Baltic Pine is the standard construction timber around here (at least, I think it comes from Russia and around Finland).
Pitch Pine always looks so inviting to build with. The grain lines are so straight and without runout. But it's heavy.
I come across alot of reclaimed timber and while I have spruce and cedar species lined-up for future builds, I fancy experimenting with pine. If only pitch pine was lighter.
I have different types of pine but I can't tell what species they are. I quess I'll just run some stiffness vs weight tests and see what will work best.
Thanks for replies.

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.